Local Planning and Initiatives

A consistent lesson from all those countries that have developed comprehensive strategies to tackle health disparities is that macro-level social and economic policies to reduce the pervasive inequality that underpins health disparities must be combined with local and community-based action. It is through well coordinated local initiatives that the roots and impact of health disparities can be addressed on the ground and that crucial services and resources can be targeted to those communities most badly affected. Regional Health Authorities across this country – and their equivalents in other countries – are a main way in which health care is planned and delivered at the local and regional level.

This means that building equity into regional health authority strategic priorities, resource allocation and service planning is a critical direction for acting on health equity. Here in Ontario, it is the Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) that will need to develop effective local strategies to address health disparities.

Bob Gardner, Director of Policy, was appointed Special Advisor on Health Equity to the Toronto Central LHIN to develop a comprehensive equity strategy. He produced a broad 12-point action plan and many specific recommendations designed to address and reduce inequitable access to healthcare, effectively target programs and resources to disadvantaged communities, support cross-sectoral action and collaboration, and encourage system change and innovation to reduce health disparities in Toronto. The 2008 health equity strategic framework is availble at:

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Acknowledgement of Traditional Land

We would like to acknowledge this sacred land on which the Wellesley Institute operates. It has been a site of human activity for 15,000 years. This land is the territory of the Huron-Wendat and Petun First Nations, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. The territory was the subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy and Confederacy of the Ojibwe and allied nations to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes.

Today, the meeting place of Toronto is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work in the community, on this territory.

Revised by the Elders Circle (Council of Aboriginal Initiatives) on November 6, 2014

In the spirit of equity and inclusion, if we can improve on this statement, please contact us. Thank you.